Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 02, 2024, 05:54:09 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 02, 2024, 04:07:41 PMHas any other publisher created decent gothic horror settings for OSR?

  Daniel James Henley's A Ghastly Affair line is pretty much raw, uncut Gothic on an OSR foundation.

Anything for Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun and other TSR classics?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 02, 2024, 07:37:19 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 02, 2024, 05:54:09 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 02, 2024, 04:07:41 PMHas any other publisher created decent gothic horror settings for OSR?

  Daniel James Henley's A Ghastly Affair line is pretty much raw, uncut Gothic on an OSR foundation.

Anything for Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun and other TSR classics?

Do you mean anything for those settings, or "anything OSR" for those settings?

Quote from: Man at Arms on December 02, 2024, 05:50:11 PM

Quote from: SHARK on December 02, 2024, 02:32:17 PMGreetings!

Hmmm. I can't say I have ever *depended* on WOTC to properly provide whatever I need to run a Gothic-inspired adventure--or even really *expected* WOTC to do so.

I've read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" as well as Shelly's "Frankenstein" books. I have a good half a dozen Gothic novels on my bookshelf. I also have books by Anne Rice. I've read them all.

Why rely on WOTC or expect them to do better than the primary source material to begin with? If you want genuine inspiration, drink yourself from the original water hose that inspired the genre to begin with.

Once you have a basic knowledge and a good grasp on the scenery and details that form the foundations of the original Gothic writers themselves--you are fully equipped. WOTC is thus really only needed then for the game-mechanics details as appropriate for the module.

I realize that some gamers may buy the modules expecting to be fully held by the hand in this regard in every way--but honestly, reading several of the original primary source books provides much stronger inspiration, colour, and sign-posts than the feeble scratchings that WOTC provides in the restricted page-counts of some adventure module.

Don't people actually read these books in school anymore? In similar genres, I'm reminded of "The Sea Wolf" and "White Fang" by Jack London; other books in historical genres such as "The Scarlet Letter", "Moby Dick", "The Headless Horseman", "Last of the Mohicans" by James Fennimore Cooper, all so many fine authors and fantastic books.

Having a basic American literacy in these classics provides a person with a solid foundation from which the aspiring DM can run appropriate genre adventures quite well, being thus well-versed in the genre vocabulary, the story themes, character development, story elements and structure.

Whether running adventure modules with a Gothic scene, or a rugged frontier theme, a small, insular town, wilderness borders, or living and working on the great sea in sailing ships, all of the original genre books are inspiring and very helpful in my experience.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

SHARK, you can't realistically expect the average person these days; to have ever read any classic literature.  There is very little appreciation for such things, among the average populace.  We live, in a different time now.  Shucks, the average student reads at a rather low level.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Yeah, Man At Arms, I know you are right. Sadly, though. Yes, I must seem like an old man "Yelling at the clouds", right?

When I was in *Grade School*, as well as Junior High, and into High School, we were familiarized with all of these classic books.

In college, and that wasn't that so long ago--in basic English Literature 101, 102, 201, Freshman and Sophomore College courses, we most certainly read and analyzed all of those classic books. Some we dug into quite in-depth.

Just your essential Liberal Arts/Humanities foundations. When I was in college, these courses which covered the older European classics, and later American classics, were considered essential education for every student--regardless of their Major, you know?

All this talk about WOTC's treatment of "Gothic" just made me think about, damn, you know, I got exposed to more Gothic essentials in a Freshman College English Writers Anthology of Classic Gothic Authors in just one semester than anything I have ever read from WOTC.

Atmosphere, scene setting, characterization, plot elements, essential vocabulary, even aspects of history and religious themes all embraced within Gothic writing.

Yeah, I've been told that no one reads books anymore. I wonder what the frigg students actually do in high school and college nowadays? I actually had to read these books, then polish off a 10 or 20 page annotated and footnoted paper for them, and participate in several extended class discussions, enthusiastically and punctually led by the professor. We were not expected to be masters of the material, but to score an "A" or a minimum score of a "B" in these courses, we had to do the work and demonstrate that we gave a damn and actually did some studying. If you slept or partied and laughed it off, my college professors would unceremoniously flame you with a failing grade without a moment's hesitation. So, yeah, I made sure I learned stuff right. *Laughing*

Even years later now, lots of that knowledge, the feel, the vocabulary, the essentials, remain with you. That's certainly an aspect that I appreciated when DMing game sessions and interpreting game modules.

I know. Our education system has been hopelessly broken and driven off a cliff. Once upon a time though, our high schools and especially our colleges did a decent job of providing students with a solid education.

It is somewhat of a tangent, but related--how I have noticed the decline of literacy and education amongst *Gamers* nowadays--compared to when I was in high school, the Marine Corps, and later, in college. Gamers used to pride themselves on being very literate and well-educated, always on the basics, but occasionally as well on some obscure topic. Increasingly, I have run into gamers that are no more educated or literate than my Labrador. They can tell me all about some stupid computer game, or what kind of underwear Beyonce wears, or what kind of tacos Taylor Swift prefers. *Shakes Head, Rolls Eyes*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 01, 2024, 10:41:30 AMThe management of Hasbro has no fucking clue what they're doing. They're developing video games like Exodus in-house, licensing Transformers tabletop games to other companies, and attacking their customer base on social media.

How are ANY of you guys who have been boycotting WOTC for over a decade their "customer base?" Guy above just said he hasn't bought anything in nearly a quarter century from them, and y'all insist you're their "customer base" being insulted here when WOTC says they don't listen to you guys? You took yourself out of the game. You declared yourself not a customer. Of course they don't listen to you: you're NOT THEIR CUSTOMERS. And you sometimes claim you should be won back but we all know that's not happening because you've built part of your core identity around being old school and not down with WOTC.

Quote from: Mistwell on December 02, 2024, 11:23:06 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 01, 2024, 10:41:30 AMThe management of Hasbro has no fucking clue what they're doing. They're developing video games like Exodus in-house, licensing Transformers tabletop games to other companies, and attacking their customer base on social media.

How are ANY of you guys who have been boycotting WOTC for over a decade their "customer base?" Guy above just said he hasn't bought anything in nearly a quarter century from them, and y'all insist you're their "customer base" being insulted here when WOTC says they don't listen to you guys? You took yourself out of the game. You declared yourself not a customer. Of course they don't listen to you: you're NOT THEIR CUSTOMERS. And you sometimes claim you should be won back but we all know that's not happening because you've built part of your core identity around being old school and not down with WOTC.

Is this the Victorian Era? Because you are gaslighting pretty hard right now.

We didn't take ourselves out of the game, we were told that the game wasn't for us. Beyond the virtue signaling of WotC staff who told us that they didn't want white cisgendered males in their safe space, WotC was producing crap that we did not want to waste money on. If the bullshit you are spewing lets you sleep at night, great. But don't try to piss on people and claim that it is just raining.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 02, 2024, 05:54:09 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 02, 2024, 04:07:41 PMHas any other publisher created decent gothic horror settings for OSR?

  Daniel James Henley's A Ghastly Affair line is pretty much raw, uncut Gothic on an OSR foundation.

Been thinking about A Ghastly Affair a lot. I love the premise, my problem with this, like most RPGs is there doesn't really seem to be a default play loop. D&D has go to the dungeon, Cyberpunk has the mission. What does my True Innocent PC do by default?

Quote from: Mistwell on December 02, 2024, 11:23:06 PMHow are ANY of you guys who have been boycotting WOTC for over a decade their "customer base?"

They're not. Me and my friends were though. They had to work hard to piss us off enough we stopped buying 5e. I still have a shelf of 5e, and another shelf of 4e.

Quote from: jhkim on December 01, 2024, 12:27:44 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2024, 03:35:05 AM

Quote from: Omega on December 01, 2024, 12:10:49 AMCurse of Strahd is wotc's first in house module and looks like thats the case from there on.

Yes, the Ravenloft book was awful; not just for the art, or the race/gender-swapping but because they completely "deconstructed" the concept of what Victorian-style horror should be.

So what does it say that about the 5E customer base that this deconstruction has been their #1 selling module, that they sold a revised version of just four years later?

I was actually referring to Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, not Curse of Strahd, which while not perfect was still from the pre-"Full Retard Woke" era.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 02, 2024, 07:43:09 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 02, 2024, 07:37:19 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 02, 2024, 05:54:09 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 02, 2024, 04:07:41 PMHas any other publisher created decent gothic horror settings for OSR?

  Daniel James Henley's A Ghastly Affair line is pretty much raw, uncut Gothic on an OSR foundation.

Anything for Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun and other TSR classics?

Do you mean anything for those settings, or "anything OSR" for those settings?

New settings that recapture the magic, since WotC can't maintain them worth a darn.

Quote from: Omega on December 01, 2024, 08:43:02 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2024, 03:35:05 AMYes, the Ravenloft book was awful; not just for the art, or the race/gender-swapping but because they completely "deconstructed" the concept of what Victorian-style horror should be.

The original was not Victorian either.

Both old and new harken more to a sort of pre-Victorian feel. Almost late Renaissance. The sequel, Gryphon Hill had a bit more Victorian feel.

What 2e really could have used was an adaption of Ravenloft to the Masque of the Red Death setting.

The appearance of the original Ravenloft module was because it was D&D, so it had to be fantasy-medieval. But the GENRE they were tapping into was the classic Victorian Horror in the style of Hammer Horror films. In other words, highly moralistic.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 02, 2024, 04:07:41 PMHas any other publisher created decent gothic horror settings for OSR?

The Red Room.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 02, 2024, 07:37:19 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 02, 2024, 05:54:09 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 02, 2024, 04:07:41 PMHas any other publisher created decent gothic horror settings for OSR?

  Daniel James Henley's A Ghastly Affair line is pretty much raw, uncut Gothic on an OSR foundation.

Anything for Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun and other TSR classics?

Well, my "Shithole" region of the World of the Last Sun is a kind of Dark-Sun parody.

Quote from: Mistwell on December 02, 2024, 11:23:06 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 01, 2024, 10:41:30 AMThe management of Hasbro has no fucking clue what they're doing. They're developing video games like Exodus in-house, licensing Transformers tabletop games to other companies, and attacking their customer base on social media.

How are ANY of you guys who have been boycotting WOTC for over a decade their "customer base?" Guy above just said he hasn't bought anything in nearly a quarter century from them, and y'all insist you're their "customer base" being insulted here when WOTC says they don't listen to you guys? You took yourself out of the game. You declared yourself not a customer. Of course they don't listen to you: you're NOT THEIR CUSTOMERS. And you sometimes claim you should be won back but we all know that's not happening because you've built part of your core identity around being old school and not down with WOTC.

The book in question, The Origins of D&D, was obviously made to cater to old-school fans. They attacked that particular customer base IN THE BOOK ITSELF.

Quote from: Mistwell on December 02, 2024, 11:23:06 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 01, 2024, 10:41:30 AMThe management of Hasbro has no fucking clue what they're doing. They're developing video games like Exodus in-house, licensing Transformers tabletop games to other companies, and attacking their customer base on social media.

How are ANY of you guys who have been boycotting WOTC for over a decade their "customer base?" Guy above just said he hasn't bought anything in nearly a quarter century from them, and y'all insist you're their "customer base" being insulted here when WOTC says they don't listen to you guys? You took yourself out of the game. You declared yourself not a customer. Of course they don't listen to you: you're NOT THEIR CUSTOMERS. And you sometimes claim you should be won back but we all know that's not happening because you've built part of your core identity around being old school and not down with WOTC.

I don't think I am their customer base at this point at all. And I am critical of some of the changes they made and statements like the one in the preface and forward, but I also bought the Making of Original Dungeons and Dragons book because I heard the interior content was quite good (and I wanted to see the preface and foreword in their full context). I also bought Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft despite my criticisms and Candle Keep Mysteries. There are things I like about both, even if some things are not my cup of tea.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 03, 2024, 09:18:44 AM

Quote from: Omega on December 01, 2024, 08:43:02 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2024, 03:35:05 AMYes, the Ravenloft book was awful; not just for the art, or the race/gender-swapping but because they completely "deconstructed" the concept of what Victorian-style horror should be.

The original was not Victorian either.

Both old and new harken more to a sort of pre-Victorian feel. Almost late Renaissance. The sequel, Gryphon Hill had a bit more Victorian feel.

What 2e really could have used was an adaption of Ravenloft to the Masque of the Red Death setting.

The appearance of the original Ravenloft module was because it was D&D, so it had to be fantasy-medieval. But the GENRE they were tapping into was the classic Victorian Horror in the style of Hammer Horror films. In other words, highly moralistic.

It is also worth mentioning Strahd is not wearing medieval clothing in the artwork. And throughout the Ravenloft run in the 90s the art often belied medieval descriptions (and some entries had things in them that were visibly not medieval). This is particularly the case with clothing. Oddly it all worked for me. If you are emulating gothic horror, hammer fils and universal monster movies, then including trappings from them makes a certain amount of sense (even if you are fitting it to D&D)